The 10 Commandments of Your Digital Life

We keep hearing about all the issues surrounding privacy, government snooping, ID Theft being on the rise (and even new types of ID Theft creating “Synthetic” identities). It is also generally accepted that the weakest link in the cyber kill chain is Dave.

Last week, in a moment of über geekiness, I purchased Google Glass (love it!) and couldn’t help noticing the news surrounding wearables and their potential impact on privacy, which made me think that it is perhaps time to remind ourselves that there are some basic hygiene steps that are worth remembering when managing our increasingly rich and evolving digital lives and that of our loved ones.

I bring you…

The 10 Commandments of your digital life, according to @neirajones

1)     Thou shalt protect your online identity as for he who steals from you thy good name may very well enrich himself (and make thou the poorer).

2)     Thou shalt deploy multi-factor authentication where available.

3)     Thou shalt not reuse passwords across multiple online accounts.

4)     Remember to help others protect themselves online.

5)     Honour thy anti-virus scanning and updating schedule.

6)     Thou shalt not click on URLs received in emails (ever) lest they might contain malicious code.

7)     Thou shalt not post on social media what thou wouldn’t want to see on the front page of a newspaper. And thou shall not moan about privacy if you do.

8)     Thou shalt not jailbreak your smartphone lest thou may introduce vulnerabilities thou cannot cope with.

9)     Thou shalt not accept thy neighbour’s social network connection request indiscriminately lest it could be a phishing attack.

10)   Thou shalt not covet dodgy apps as they will harm you (and thou shalt stick to the approved app stores).

By Neira Jones | @neirajones

More than 20 years in financial services made me believe in change through innovation & partnerships. I’m privileged enough to be regularly invited to advise organisations, large and small, at board level and address global audiences on payments, cybercrime, risk, information security and business turnaround. I have directed many global change programmes, launched new products/services & managed process reengineering practices. I also strive to demystify risk and raise cybercrime awareness whilst promoting digital innovation. I chair the Advisory Board for mobile innovator Ensygnia & the Global Advisory Board for the Centre for Strategic Cybercrime & Security Science. I am a Fellow of the British Computer Society & I was on the PCI SSC Board of Advisors for 4 years.

I was nominated Top Chief Security Officer to Follow on Twitter by CEOWORLD Magazine, Merchant Payments Ecosystem nominated me Acquiring Personality of the Year 2013. I received the FStech April 2013 Compliance Project of the Year & Anti-fraud/Security Strategy of the Year award, the 2012 SC Magazine Information Security Person of the Year award and I was inducted to the InfoSecurity Europe 2011 Hall of Fame. I have also worked for Barclaycard, Santander, Abbey National, Oracle Corp. and Unisys.

I’m a bit of a geek, proud Google Glass Explorer and I love cars.